and 30s and old town maryland, got a weather watcher out there says 18 right now. so, yeah, clear skies. weather wise, bundle up, we're going to have a cold start and a cold day today. we'll be lucky to get to 49, 50 degrees. here's your day planner where temperatures will be struggling to get up into the mid-40s here by lunchtime. i'm going to walk over. you guys can put weather graphics up eventually. noon sunny, 46. we'll get to 49 degrees, and by 50 degrees 5:00 for the high. 5:00 p.m. 45. here's a look at the nor'easter or what will become the nor'easter. it's down in georgia, coming into south carolina. it's going to make the turn and come up the coast. for us it's going to give us a glancing blow. that means just a few rain or maybe snow showers mixed in, especially east. freeze warning until 9:00 this morning. your temperatures are down in the 20s to mid-30s right now. monica, over to you. diesel fuel spill cleanup and an accident on route 234,

prince william parkway at balls ford road. it's just south of i-66. cleanup continues there. you'll want to go ahead and use suddenly road as your alternate route to -- sudly road as your alternate route. on i-66 the lanes are open. in fact, let's take a live look there on the inbound side and you can see 66 north of the accident scene is not affected at all as you travel towards centreville, fairfax and beyond. so i'll keep you posted on that situation just south of 66. let's go back over to our maps this time to 270 on the southbound side. still looking great, no issues to report as you head down towards clarksburg down to the point where the lanes divide. all lanes are open right now. we'll take a live look outside and show you what it looks like on the beltway here at new hampshire avenue. travel lanes are open at university boulevard, both loops north side of town. i'll be back with more on that accident in manassas coming up at 5:10. back to you guys. we are almost there. 5:02 now. after more than a year of

emerging candidates, dropouts, nominating conventions, head-to- head debates, today it boils down to all of us, the american voters. >> and the republican challenger hasn't stopped campaigning for your votes just yet. begat cheban begins our coverage with president obama's campaign from chicago. >>reporter: president obama spending election day in chicago. he cast his ballot there during early voting almost two weeks ago. the president wrapped up his campaign in des moines last night, just steps away from his iowa headquarters during his first presidential bid in 2008. >> are you fired up? >>reporter: president obama made one final plea for votes in the critical battleground state. >> after all the months of campaign, after all the rallies, after the millions of dollars of ads, it all comes down to you. it's out of my hands now. >>reporter: president obama plans to continue his election

day tradition of playing basketball with friends. i'm begat cheban in chicago. >>reporter: i'm randall pinkston. underscoring how close this election is expected to be, the first town in the nation to vote ended in a tie. >> this has never happened before in dixville. we have a tie. >>reporter: dixville notch, new hampshire gave five votes each for the president and mitt romney. romney plans to cast his own ballot in massachusetts this morning. he will then immediately hit the campaign trail, rallying supporters in cleveland and pittsburgh to get them out to the polls. romney says momentum is on his side. >> these last months of our campaign have seen the gathering of strength of a real movement across this country. it's evident in the size of these crowds like this tonight, my goodness. [ cheers and applause ] >>reporter: romney says he will deliver the change the president promised but failed to do. randall pinkston, cbs news, boston. closer to home, some of the first returns we'll see tonight will be from the swing state of virginia.

>> and the commonwealth is also the site of a very highly contested senate race. with more on the battleground virginia, jessica doyle joins us now from the election wall. details on the election pitting two former governors against each other for a u.s. senate seat. good morning, jess. >>reporter: good morning to both of you. good morning to everybody at home. the nation's attention, of course, has been captured by the neck-in-neck race for the white house. in virginia the key senate race there looks just as close as this is an important race because it could determine whether democrats maintain control in the senate or hand over power to the republicans. taking a look at the race, democrat tim kaine and republican george allen are duking it out for this senate seat being 78cateed by jim webb. he's the democrat that beat george allen four years ago. allen was governor from 1994 to 1998 during a time of economic growth in both the state and the nation. kaine was governor of virginia from 2006 to 2010 and guided the commonwealth through a sharp economic downturn.

now, here's where both stand on key positions. kaine says he would allow the bush-era tax cuts to expire for incomes above $500,000 a year. that is twice the level proposed by the white house. he also supports taking away subsidizes for big oil companies. now, george allen favors lowering taxes for job-creating businesses. he would also like to simplify the tax code for individuals, possibly even offering a flat tax option for individual taxpayers. now right now the polls give kaine a three-point lead in virginia over allen, but that is within the margin of error, so right now it's looking like anybody's race. we are back at the election wall in 30 minutes. we're going to give you an update in the race for same-sex marriage in maryland. i'm going to send it back to you. >> jessica, thank you. and we have an update for you on that lawsuit about poll watchers in fairfax county, virginia. the suit disputed new training guidelines for the people who were typically at voting precincts to answer any voter questions. the judge sided with the

fairfax county democrats and ruled those poll watchers cannot be forced to just sit silently in a corner. in montgomery county, some voters tell us they have gotten their second copy of their absentee ballots in the mail. election officials sent out more absentee ballots after getting word from montgomery and prince george's counties that the first batch was missing, i believe it has page 2, that has questions 4-7 on it. so the board of elections had to get out two ballots. and if you get two, send them both back. they say the second set is the one that will be kounlted in the election. we are less than an hour away from the starting in virginia. in the commonwealth the polls are open from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. in maryland they're open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. you can learn more about the local candidates and ballot questions at wusa9.com. just click on campaign 2012. and be sure to join us tonight for complete coverage of the returns from cbs news and 9 news. coming up on 5:07 election day morning. we're going to take a look at the other news coming up,

including some investigations this morning into a couple of terrible accidents. plus police release a video they hope leads to the arrest of a pair of serial arsonists. ahead in sports, a little salt in the wounds of redskins fans as the refs admit they made a really big mistake sunday. we'll be right back.

5:09 on this tuesday morning, election day. no weather excuses not to get out and vote. you're just going to need a heavier coat, especially this morning. it's cold. we got 20s and 30s, even some upper teens in western maryland. we're looking at just a couple of clouds at times this morning. it's not going to be that cloudy today. it's going to be a decent amount of sunshine. 47 by 3:00. high temperature 49, and by 6:00, a couple clouds starlgt to come back and -- starting to come back and 44. i'll be back in a few minutes, we'll fix the sun and cloud icons and talk about the seven- day forecast. warming up by the weekend. monica, over to you. >>reporter: northbound 395, here's what it looks like at duke street. pretty much the same all the way up to the 14th street bridge. there is an accident over in

manassas on balls ford road at the prince william parkway. you'll have to follow police direction to get around it. i'll have more on that coming up in my next report at 5:17. mike. >> thank you, monica. making news at 5:10 this morning, maryland state police are investigating a deadly accident in buoy. troopers say a concrete truck hit a honda civic on central avenue and that car was crushed between two other trucks that were stopped at a red light. the car's driver and passenger were both killed in this. in prince william county, virginia, police are investigating a deadly accident involving a dre train. a person was struck on the tracks last night near cherry hill road. commuters on the train were stuck for two hours until another one could pick them up and finish the run down to fredricksburg. prince george's county police have released video of serial arsonists setting fire to cars. they've released surveillance video from ketterring where one of the arsons was caught on tape, along with two suspects. now, the arsonists had burned cars all around central and northern parts of the county. it is 5:10 and our

election day coverage continues throughout the morning. coming up at 5:50, we'll meet some undecided voters in virginia. and at 5:22 in sports, redskins coach mike shanahan responds to reports that he was basically throwing in the towel on the rest of the 2012 season. and next at 5:15, howard might just have a 70 in store for us in the seven-day forecast. we'll be back.

good morning and welcome back to 9 news now. it is 5:14 on this tuesday morning, election day. a nice, cold 39 degrees here in the city. >> and there are some spots that are in the mid-20s in the suburbs. so it is a cold, frosty morning in many areas. freeze warning until 9:00, growing season ending for most of us. it already ended north and west several days ago when they had their subfreezing temperatures. we start you off with a look at the day planner. no bus stop forecast because no school today. temperatures are going to be decent. we'll have sunshine here, some high clouds mixing in. by noon 46. winds shouldn't be too bad, northeast five, 10 miles an hour, and by the time we get to 5:00, then we're talking about temperatures which are going to be in the upper 40s after topping out near the 50-degree mark this afternoon. temperatures this morning, there are your 20s in cumberland and jane in old town says she's down to 18, with 27 la ray, 28 culpepper. winchester is 28.

to the east we've got 20s in easton and upper 20s at the pautuxent naval air station. a look outside at the michael and son weather camera, some cloud out there, good visibility. dry too. dewpoints down in the 20s so the humidity only 67% and a slight wind out of the northeast at eight now, making that 35 feel more like 29 on the wind chill. so gloves, jackets, you get the idea. hey, the forecast temperatures today, you can see the warmth in the southwest and south texas, but look at all the light blue here. those are temperatures in most spots in the 30s and 40s. so a cold air mass in place. and this is going to play into the developing storm system for later tomorrow, tomorrow night, especially up along the jersey coast and up into parts of new england where interior areas could be talking about several inches of snow. we're watching a developing nor'easter. it's an area of low pressure now which is coming in toward atlanta. you can clearly see the counter clockwise circulation here in

northwest georgia, trailing cold front there. this is going to get to the coast, get some more energy here, just past us. it seems to be one of those situations where the storm really starts to develop as it's passing us. so for us, we're going to get a glancing blow, we'll get a few cloud, a little wind, a few showers, maybe a wet flake mixed in, but the bigger precipitation periods, the bigger ones will be north and east of us. clouds start to build tonight late. mostly cloudy, showers into parts of the del dl marva, parts of the eastern shore, but north and west we may be seeing a little bit of sun wednesday morning. we could be looking at some rain and then snow on the eastern shore here by early afternoon tomorrow. this will be a rain/snow mix, not expecting this to stick until maybe after dark. now we're at 7:00. we have very little precipitation d.c. west, on the eastern shore, up the jersey turnpike, this is where we've got a rain or snow, especially away from the coast. this is where we could have some problems. the wind on the coast also going to be gusty here. we get into midnight hour on wednesday night, you'll notice

d.c. is dry, eastern shore rain/snow mix and that will be the case on thursday with some coastal rain and wind, and thursday's weather improving pretty quickly as this storm system pulls away. how about the battleground states? supposedly the states where the whole election is going to be decided. weather wise looks great in nevada and colorado. western iowa looking at some showers now in sioux city, a wintery mix in wausau, but it won't stick. temperatures upper 30s to low 40s. ohio looks sunny, new hampshire looks sunny, although a couple of cloud and cold up north. we've got maybe some showers into asheville and wilmington, and in florida, well, western florida looks good, south florida looks good, but central and north florida, could be talking some showers and storms. around here today, our high temperature will be near 50. it'll be chilly. tonight back into the 30s. mid-40s tomorrow, a glancing blow from the nor'easter, so just a few rain and snow showers, especially east of town, not expecting too much problems, breezy. sun returns thursday, 53. by friday 58, and look at your weekend, we got the heart walk

saturday morning, 66, and maybe 70 on sunday. monica. >> loving that sunny forecast. can't wait for that. and i don't think -- and you can wait for this, i'm sorry. there is an accident, if you're planning to head south in manassas, south of i-66, the accident blocks balls ford road at the prince william parkway. you might just want to search and rescue using sudly road as your alternate route. let's take a live look outside and show you what it looks like. first, if you're planning to head to the south side of town at st. barnabus. this is at st. barnabus road heading down toward the wilson bridge and down into virginia, you're going to be okay through this stretch. back over to the maps, this time let's talk about the bw parkway and route 50, right through chefferly, no issues to report. as you head into the northeast corridor, we're looking fine on the beltway in prince george's county, basically between the bw parkway and st. barnabus road. a live look on the north side of town at new hampshire avenue, traffic still moving really well through the northern stretch of town. i'll be back with more on that

accident in manassas at 5:24. back to you guys. wow! what a year for maryland, at least this time it wasn't their quarterback because we've seen that happen a few times already. another player goes down with a season-ending injury. >> and redskins coach mike shanahan responds to reports that he's given up on the 2012 season after sunday's loss. never say never. that's coming up in sports. another look at the question of the day now, according to usa today, 26% of american teenagers have never done this, a, write a check, b, write a letter, or, c, use a traditional landline phone. >> this is one of the responses posted on the wusa9 facebook page by claudeet. she says, a, write a check. who pays the bills? >> go to our facebook fan page and leave a response. we'll have the answer to the question in our 6:00 show. we'll be right back.

5:21 on this tuesday morning. cold out there. mid-20s to mid-30s, very frosty, just spoke to charlie in catlin, 25 with with plenty of frost out as well. as we head toward 9:00, 30s to around 40. might see a patch of clouds in the lower part of the bay. we'll head toward lunchtime with temps in the mid-40s here. it is going to be a brisk day as temperatures this afternoon struggle to get close to the 50- degree mark. a few more clouds late with temperatures by 6:00 back down into the 40 to 45 range. bundle up. andrea and mike. >> thank you, howard. the bad luck just -- with

injuries just won't run out for maryland's football teams. >> it really is unbelievable every time you hear it. plus the refs confess up to a big mistake. >>reporter: good morning, everybody. if you thought the first nine weeks of the season were rough, wait for the next seven. the redskins have five divisional games left to play and a lot of work to do over the next couple of weeks. head coach mike shanahan obviously disappointed with his team's performance sunday against carolina. they got embarrassed at home against a one-win team and in his post-game press conference, shanty said in part, "now we're playing to see who obviously is going to be on the football team for years to come." now, those comments got folks wondering if he's thrown in the towel for the season. shanahan says he was misunderstood. >> when you talk about five games in the nfc east and two in the afc, we're just starting our nfc east tour, to think that we would play young players or suggest that we play

young players and the season is over with is completely ludicrous. >> mike shanahan not too happy. the referees admit they incorrectly awarded panthers williams a touchdown on sunday's game. an inad vertent rule during the td run, but they gave up the rule. they say the panthers should have been given a 1st down, not a touchdown. the injuries keep piling on at maryland. they just can't get a break. they announced yesterday that linebacker demetrius hartsfield, the team's leading tackler is out for the season with, get this, a torn acl. he becomes the fifth player to go down with a knee injury. that's a quick look at sports this morning. remember to get out and vote today. i'm kristin berset, have a great tuesday. >> does a blown call affect the redskins vote? who knows. they got control of the house two years ago, now republicans are trying to win a majority in the senate. coming up more on the key

senate race in our area. plus we will talk to a couple of undecided voters and find out why they're torn over this presidential race. monica, over to you. >>reporter: balls ford road at the prince william parkway out in manassas remains closed with an accident. crews there say it will be a while. here northbound on i-95 things look good in springfield heading for 395. more news, traffic and weather coming up at 5:29. you're watching 9 news now.

good morning. welcome back to 9 news now on this tuesday morning. it is election day. i'm andrea rose. >> >> it's all of our turns. monica, good morning. >>reporter: exercise your right. >> there it is. >> howard bernstein. >> exercise. >> stay warm. >> that's the word of the morning or the words of the morning, bundle up because we have temperatures down in the 20s in many places, frosty. if there's one good thing

today, the winds are fairly light right now. and the other good thing, that nor'easter we're concerned about which is still going to happen going to be far enough east that i think we get a glancing blow at the worst at this point. so not expecting too much of an impact from that. here's a look at your day planner on this tuesday morning. a cold start, down to 35 at national with mostly cloudy skies, in fact, overcast being reported. we'll see a decent amount of sunshine with cloud. mid-40s at lunchtime, near 50 for the high, back down to 45 by 5:00 p.m. there's that developing nor'easter, well to the south now. once it hits the coast, it's going to start to make the turn to the northeast, north and it is going to bring some rain and snow to the region, especially east of town. freeze warnings until 9:00, so the growing season is over, and ending this morning with temperatures now down to 25 in martinsburg and cumberland. it is 26 in gaithersburg, 28 la plata and 29 in easton. bundle up. hopefully that won't be your only problem of the morning. here's monica to elaborate.

>>reporter: there is one other problem i can add to that list and that's an accident if you're planning to head over into manassas. it's ongoing since about 4:30 this morning with a diesel fuel spill and a truck involved here on balls ford road at the prince william parkway and crews there tell us it's going to be a while before they can open up that intersection. so in the meantime go ahead and use sudly road if you need to get off of 66 in manassas. that's a little further out from the prince william parkway, but not too bad. and 66, by the way, is not affected by the accident right now. let's go to a live picture. this time we're going to show you what it looks like first on the north side of town at new hampshire avenue. this is where it starts to get heavy within i'd say another 15 to 20 minutes on the outer loop, but right now it still looks good here at new hampshire avenue heading for silver spring. now let's go back to the maps. this time all the way to the other side of town, inside the beltway, 395 here leaving the pentagon to the 14th street bridge, no issues at all. and i'll be back with more traffic coming up at 5:40. back to you guys. >> thanks, monica.

campaign 2012 comes to an end today, we hope, with millions of americans having the final say. >> voters have heard all the stump speeches, they've watched the debates and they've endured the in neumerrable campaign ads. president obama is spending the day in chicago after hitting multiple states each day for the last week. he returned to his 2008 campaign headquarters in iowa last night to make a final plea before voters. >>reporter: after all the months of campaign, after all the ralls, after the millions of dollars of ads, it all comes down to you. it's out of my hands now. >> these last months of our campaign have seen the gathering of strength of a real movement across this country. it's evident in the size of these crowds like this tonight. my goodness. [ cheers and applause ] >> republican challenger mitt romney will cast his ballot this morning in massachusetts before heading to election day rallies in ohio and pennsylvania. in a possible indication of just how close this race could

turn out, the new hampshire town of dixville notch cast its ballots just after midnight and reported its first-ever tie. five votes for president obama, five for governor romney. >> and there's no margin of error. >> exactly. one of the battleground states in this campaign is, of course, the commonwealth of virginia. presidential candidates and their running mates have made many stops here in the closing weeks of the campaign. but the commonwealth is also the site of a very hotly contested senate race. kristin fisher is live in alexandria where one of those candidates will cast a ballot this morning. good morning, kristin. >>reporter: good morning. well, we're talking about the senate race between george allen and tim kaine and this race is absolutely critical because it could very well determine which party ends up controlling the senate. and just to give you an idea of how big a deal this is nationally, more than 50 million/$50 million have been poured into this race from

outside groups and that's more than any other congressional campaign -- or congressional contest in the entire country. now, over the last year or so of campaigning, almost every poll has put this race in a statistical dead heat, but i want to show you the most recent poll out just yesterday, actually. it gave democrat tim kaine a slight edge over his republican opponent george allen, 49% to 46% with 4% of voters still undecided, and those undecided voters could very well make the difference. this race a razor close and that poll is well within the margin of error. now today george allen is going to be voting right here where i am now at washington mill elementary school in mount vernon shortly after the polls open at 6:00 a.m. then he'll be heading down to richmond to watch the returns come in and it'll likely be a late, nerve-wracking night for both candidates, but especially allen because in 2006 allen lost the race for this very senate seat by less than 9,000

votes. you know he would hate to have that happen again, but it's going to be close. the former governor is up against another former governor, democrat tim kaine. this morning he too will be leading by example, casting his vote in richmond. and, you know, kaine's last few campaign stops have been all about getting out the vote and reminding virginians about the state's new voter identification law. because as we've been saying all morning, every last vote is going to count in this race. so, remember, when you come out to vote, be sure to bring your valid form of i.d., polls open in virginia starting at 6:00 a.m., in just under a half an hour. and, look, there is already a line forming. i'm going to step out of the way so you can see, people already lined up, waiting to cast their ballot on this election day morning. they've got their coffee, they've got their voter registration cards, they've got their i.d.s. we're going to be chatting with a few of them and hopefully we'll be seeing george allen walking in here in a half an hour to an hour to cast his vote. back to you, mike and andrea.

>> you can see all the travel logs as they wait in line. see you in a little bit. campaign 2012 in maryland, that's where we go now. some big referendums on the ballot. >> jessica doyle is at the election wall. she's looking at the issue of same-sex marriage in maryland or what question 6 will mean to you. jessica. >>reporter: good morning. well, up until today 32 states have voted on the legality of same-sex marriage and in all cases, the voters have said no. well, today question 6 goes to the voters of maryland, along with three other states, all votes are expected to be incredibly close. if you vote yes on question 6, what this means is same-sex couples will be allowed to marry in maryland starting january 1st. the law also protects clergy from having to protect the ceremonies in violation of their religious beliefs. if you vote no on question 6, you will actually be voting down the civil marriage protection act. this was a measure signed into law by the governor on march

1st. this referendum will allow voters to veto that law and essentially ban same-sex marriage in the state of maryland. in both maryland and washington state, gay marriage laws were approved by lawmakers and signed by the governors earlier this year, but opponents gathered enough signatures to actually challenge these laws. gay marriage is currently legal in six states and the district of colombia. these laws have been the result of legislation or court order. this has not been a popular vote. now, clearly this will be a very closely watched contest across the country. and in the next half hour here at the election wall, we're going to be taking a look at the issue of early voting. we have a sense of how the political wins have been blow -- political winds have been blowing and we'll do that in 30 minutes. we'll send it back to you guys. >> jessica, thanks. after number 6 on the maryland ballot is number 7. >> and that deals with expanding gambling in the free state. coem has more on the role that

prince george's county is going to play on this one. good morning. >>reporter: good morning, mike and andrea. well, we say key because essentially prince george's county voters hold the key to opening a las vegas-style casino in prince george's county that would likely if passed be at the national harbor. this has been such a hot button issue, both sides pushing aggressively for their campaigns. now, even as you are watching us at home this morning, during our commercial breaks, you saw those question 7 ads. at last check, $80 million were poured into the television ads for and against question 7. the proponent paints this as a way to expand gambling and boost the economy that prince george's county executive and maryland governor martin o'malley are among those who support question 7, but other top leaders disagree. here's what both sides have to say. >> the promise of 12,000 jobs,

both permanent and in construction is something that we can't overlook. >> any dollars coming from the casino into education in maryland only replace existing school dollars, netting no change for education funding. >>reporter: this is certainly a dividing issue, opponents saying it would serve special interests and not be good for prince george's county. now, when voters go into polling places like the one here behind me this morning, they'll be faced with a question that is multi parts, mike and andrea. essentially voters have to decide do you support adding table games to the state's existing and planned casinos, and do you support adding a sixth new casino in prince george's county. here's one scenario that could play out, the rest of maryland votes for question 7, prince george's county voters, a majority of them vote no, what

could happen is that table games would still be added to the casinos, but not necessarily the casino would not get the green light. so a lot to think about this morning and for voters to consider. back to you, mike. >> great job breaking that down. koe cohen request details on question 7. in d.c., voters will be electing a new county chair to replace kwame brown, as well as two at-large council seats in four other spots. brown and harry thomas, jr. both resigned, pleading guilty to criminal charges this year and that has led to additional questions on the d.c. ballot which would allow the councilmembers to remove other members for poor conduct. it would also bar those convicted of felonies from holding seats on the council or ever becoming mayor. >> we invite you to stay with 9 news for election coverage throughout the day. we'll have more on voter turnout in our early newscast and then hand it off to cbs news for primetime coverage as returns from across the nation

come in. then tune in tonight at 11:00 and right here tomorrow for local, state and national race results. just about 5:40. well over a million people still without power in the northeast, a week after superstorm sandy hit. >> but provisions are being made to help those storm victims get to the polls today. that story coming up. we'll be right back.

5:41 on this tuesday morning. a cold morning. we've got freeze warnings in effect until 9:00 so the growing season ending, temps in the teens, 20s and 30s. today you'll want the jacket and certainly the gloves this morning. looking at the day planner, sun mixed in with high clouds at times. noon temp 36. i'm forecasting a high of 49 and by 6:00 mostly cloudy and 44 degrees. i'll be back in just a few minutes talking about the sphoaflt. got a nor'easter and a warmup both headed our way. monica. >>reporter: an accident, a truck involved and a diesel

fuel spill since 4:30 this morning, still shuts down the prince william parkway at balls ford road. we've been on the phone with authorities there and they tell us there's entrapment involved and that's going to be a while before they can reopen the road. keep that in mind for your travel plans and i'll have details throughout the morning. back to you, mike and andrea. >> monica, see you in a little bit. here's the question of the day, according to usa today, 26% of american teenagers have never done one of these things, a, write a check, b, write a letter, or, c, use a traditional landline phone. >> facebook friend terry moen wrote it should be all three, teens aren't taught to really write anymore and the cell phone and iphone have made landlines a thing of the past and checks, debit cards are the thing, but i'll take a, if they can't write a letter, how can they write a check? >> remember, it's only 26% there. log onto our facebook fan page and leave your response. we'll have your answer in about an hour. so have you made up your mind yet which candidates you're going to support at the polls today?

>> we'll talk to a few of the undecided who could influence the outcome in northern virginia coming up. we'll be right back.

good morning, it's 5:47 on this tuesday morning. how are you doing? have you voted? howard says the weather won't be a problem. >> no. just a little chilly out there. so bundle up for that. >> hot cocoa. >> gloves. >> yeah. it is chilly out there. 20s and 30s. in fact, i just got offline with steve from crosstown, virginia, that's north of winchester, 25 up there this morning. >> whoa! >> that's pretty indicative of the rural areas, the outer suburbs this morning. here is a look at our day planner on this tuesday morning, election day with temperatures starting in the 20s and 30s. upper 30s here in d.c. by 8:00. pi noon 46. we'll be sunny with some high cloud, but generally mostly sunny today. 4:00 still 46. we're going to have a high around 49. that probably happens 2:00,

2:30, 3:00. by yook 43, going back into the 30s tonight, but we're not going to be as cold as this morning. tonight is going to be a cloudy night, probably a little bit more wind as well. 28 in gaithersburg right now, northern loudoun county, 24 in lubutsville, that's the coldest i've seen for them with 27 in vienna, herndon also 25, 26. brett riding in on his bike for like the 8 millionth day in a row. buoy 29, same with laurel and andrews 28. and outside on our michael and son weather camera, while we've got some clouds over there, there are some breaks, great visibility this morning. the air is dry. there's a little bit of a wind chill. feels like 29 with that 35 and the humidity at 67%. we do have some cold air across areas in the northeast, the mid- atlantic through the appalachians and the northern plains. the rest of the country mild to even warm in the southwest, but it's the cold in the east, that's one of the ingredients that's going to feed into this

developing nor'easter that we're now watching, not this energy, but it's the energy down in atlanta this morning. you see it coming across from alabama into georgia, trailing cold front, some storms southeastern georgia into florida. once this gets to the coast, it is going to get stronger and it's going to come up the coast. for us yesterday it looked like it would be more of a direct hit. today it looks like it's going to be more of a glancing blow a little bit farther east. here's our futurecast. tonight 6:00 you'll notice the clouds starting to creep up from the south, so we may finish the day with a few more cloud, but the sunset is at 5:02. overnight tonight the clouds thicken up, showers along the coast, and you'll notice the storm system out here eastern shores seeing rain and snow mixed by the middle of the day tomorrow into the afternoon and evening hours. so there's going to be some accumulation in jersey, maybe a light accumulation on the eastern shore, but for us not expecting much more than just a couple of showers, especially east of town or some wet flakes, that's it. 49 today, tonight we're into

the 30s. 45 tomorrow, breezy, rain or snow showers, especially east, sun returns thursday, 53. as we head toward the weekend, we're going to warm up. please join me for the heart walk saturday morning at nats park and great for the ravens game on sunday. monica. >>reporter: if you are planning to head around town, i now have two accidents to tell you about in virginia. i've been telling you about one since 4:30 this morning out in manassas and it's blocking the prince william parkway at balls ford road. that's south of i-66, it's going to be there for a while, it's a truck and a diesel fuel spill, lots of equipment on the scene as well. here's northbound, you see the yellow forming by the occuquan river. here in the valley dow have a closure here on route 1, so watch out for that at the mount vernon highway. two right lanes are blocked in each direction with an accident. we'll take a live look outside, show you what it looks like first in springfield, northbound 95 bunching up route 644 to the beltway. back over to the maps, slow

traffic on the southbound side of 270. you're only going maybe 16 miles an hour here at route 109. the last live look at shady grove road where traffic is moving well. i'll be back at more coming up at 6:00. back to you guys. making news now at 5:51. they're no where near finished cleaning up from sandy, but authorities in new york and new jersey are now preparing for a nor'easter. the storm could hamper efforts to restore electricity to more than 1 million homes still without power. the system could also cause new flooding along the coast. have you ever had to cast a ballot in a tent? that's what they have to do in some of the hardest hit areas hit by sandy in election day. also on staten island, new york, people are burning their destroyed furniture just to stay warm because they still don't have heat and that debris can't be used as firewood, it's being piled up in the streets and being hauled to makeshift landfill. >> there's ways to help victims of sandy. go to our wusa facebook page and like us. for everyone who does we'll

donate $1 to the american red cross sandy relief fund. so far the american red cross has taken in more than $85 million. well, it's just about under way in our area, the first voters around here are casting ballots in about 10 minutes when the polls open in virginia. and after being an automatic win for republicans for decades, the commonwealth voted for president obama four years ago. >> will virginia swing back to red this year? andrea mccarren tracked down some undecideds. she said they're not apathetic or indifferent, they just haven't made up their minds. >> when is the election? [ laughter ] >> what are the names of the two people running? >>reporter: late night television has had a field day with undecided voters. >> so why are you undecided? what goes on up here? what goes on up here? >> i still can't decide who to go with. i know where i lean, but i don't -- i can't say for certainty that that's what i'm going to do come tomorrow. >>reporter: on the eve of one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in history, we met people like

paul barios. >> it's more of the person that's the person i disagree with the least right now. we'll see what happens tomorrow. >>reporter: he's an educated 29-year-old professional, hispanic, christian, and now conflicted. >> it was tough because there's a lot of people that expects you to vote a certain way based on your age or what religious affiliations you have. >> i think i'm going to think it over a little bit more and then make my decision on my way to the voting booth. >>reporter: jen wilson is undecided too. as a young black woman, she says people assume she's voting for obama. >> i don't care what the color of your skin is, as long as you're standing for something good and you're looking out for the middle class. >> it's two totally different ways for the country to go. >>reporter: voters who have made up their minds are baffled, even exas perated by others' naibility to make up their mind -- inability to make up their minds. >> my god, as a woman, look what we went through to get the right to vote. >> if you're undecided about something, it's kind of, like,

make a decision. there's two clear options here. >>reporter: andrea mccarren, 9 news now. >> pollster john zogby says 20% of the nation's voters, about 12 million are still undecided. in the battleground state of virginia, polls show about 1 1/2% haven't made up their minds. that's between 40,000 and 45,000 voters. coming up we'll head live to maryland where key referendums are on the ballot this time. but up next a quick break from election coverage for today's hero central where we recognize a special day care that's helping homeless families. we'll be right back.

today's hero central recognizes a special day care. the national center on family homelessness says more than a million children in america have no place to call their own. >> in the d.c. area, one organization is serving homeless children by providing supervision and a lot more. jc hayward salutes bright beginnings. >> this is my daughter. >>reporter: bright beginnings is the home away from home for loretta jones' two children, 4- year-old fredrick and 3-year- old gwendolyn, they've all lived in transitional housing. >> bright beginnings provides the stability for these children and their families. children have a safe place. >> i feel comfortable leaving them here so i can pursue my dreams of going back to school and getting into the computer programming that i want to do. >>reporter: the 26-year-old

enrolled her preschoolers 2 1/2 years ago after a social worker told her about bright beginnings. >> i was hesitant at first, i don't want to be an overprotective mom, but i came in and they made me feel at home. >>reporter: bright beginnings offers free services for youngsters from six weeks to 5 years old. >> with my daughter, i've seen that she's normally bossy, but now she's learning leadership skills versus being bossy. with my son, he does have a behavior problem, but we're working on it together. >>reporter: the center teaches social skills to children so that they will be ready for kindergarten. >> our teachers are dedicated, they are individuals who want to work with this population. they are well educated, they could work in any educational setting, they choose bright beginnings. >>reporter: for mothers, the center offers parenting classes. >> they're teaching me patience. >>reporter: the center is so successful that there is a wait

list of almost 200 youngsters, since families are losing jobs in this economy. >> the need is tremendous, but we just don't have the space. >>reporter: i'm jc hayward, 9 news now. >> with that waiting list of over 200, bright beginnings ask only serve 86 children right now. so if you'd like to donate or volunteer go to jchayward.com and click on hero central. good morning and thank you for watching 9 news at 6:00 a.m., i'm andrea rose. >> happy election day. thanks for joining us. good morning, monica. >>reporter: good day. >> it is indeed, a little chilly, mr. bernstein. >> it is. down into the 20s, freeze warks until 9:00. that is going to be the big problem, the temperatures, but we're going to stay dry and have a decent amount of sunshine and the nor'easter i was worried about yesterday, it's still coming, but it's going farther east, so the impacts here should be very minor as we get into the day on wednesday. here's a look at the day planner for your tuesday, where we are talking about the cold. it's 35 in d.c., but we've got some mid-20s in the